|
A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR, CHARLES SAUFLEY
 |
While the acoustic guitar experiences a design revolution rather rarely, the business of selling acoustic guitars changes constantly and quickly. So our interest was piqued when C.F. Martin and Co. unveiled a new, interactive way to design and purchase your own custom guitar online. It reflects the way in which we’re making our gear coverage more interactive and accessible through our own site
(www.acousticguitar.com) and in features like our Winter NAMM coverage which includes video interviews from Bob Taylor, Jean Larrivée, Bill Collings, Richard Hoover, and many, many more.
This month we also talked to one of the classical guitar world’s most legendary builders, Manuel Rodríguez Sr. Check out our Industry Voices section to find out what the elder Rodríguez has learned about guitar building over the last 70 years!
We’d love to hear what acoustic-guitar innovations you have in the works, so drop me a line at acousticguitartrade@stringletter.com and let me know what your company has in store for the rest of the year.
Continue to receive Acoustic Guitar Trade and check out our other e-newsletters by clicking here www.acousticguitar.com/enewsletters.
Charles Saufley, associate editor of Acoustic Guitar, has been a professional writer and editor for 15 years. He is a guitarist who frequently performs in the San Francisco Bay Area and around the United States.
|
|
IN THIS ISSUE
|
|
|
BUSINESS HAPPENINGS
|
Martin Guitar Launches Virtual Custom Shop
Prospective Martin Guitar customers who have longed to have a Martin built to their own specifications can now do so online via the Martin website. The interactive feature enables customers to choose body style, woods, nut width, and ornamentation while watching a visual representation of their instrument come together. Once users have the guitar of their dreams assembled online, they print an order and take it to their local Martin dealer to set the building process in motion. The Acoustic Guitar editors took a spin with the new Web feature at (www.martinguitar.com/guitars/custom), and apart from ringing up a very high-ticket OM in no time, found the application fast and fun to use.
In other Martin news, Claire Frances Martin, daughter of Martin CEO Chris Martin, is on the cover of the April 2008 issue of Inc. magazine and shares the spotlight with her dad in a feature about enduringly thriving family businesses.
|
|
INDUSTRY VOICES
|
A brief chat with Manuel Rodríguez Sr.
Manuel Rodríguez Sr. began his lutherie career in 1939, working as an apprentice to Manuel Ramírez. After eleven years in the Ramírez shop, where he established himself as one of Madrid’s best guitar builders, Rodríguez established his own shop before moving to Los Angeles in 1959. In 1973 he returned to Madrid, where he and his sons Manuel Jr. and Norman have continued to build guitars that make the Rodríguez brand one the most respected names in nylon-string guitars.
What is the most important thing you’ve learned in 70 years of building guitars?
The most important things are what I learned working with my father at the Ramírez workshop and from working with Mr. Ramírez himself every day. I also learned from Mr. Benito and Mr. Marcelo Barbero and Ramírez II and Ramírez III. And in those days, Master Andrés Segovia and Mr. Ramírez began their relationship too. When I began building guitars for myself, they were very different than those built by the Ramírez family, so we learned how to get different sounds. We designed the “lift” fingerboard and movable bridge, and learned how to work with more exotic woods.
You are truly a “world” guitar builder. You’ve worked in Spain and in California and sold your guitars around the world. What have you learned about doing business on a global scale in the last ten or 15 years. How has it changed?
We have learned that we live in a very small world. And that we must prove ourselves every single day by building instruments with passion, rich in sound, rich in history, and rich in beauty.
Worldwide competition is very difficult, but we work with world leaders, like Jimmy Carter—giving them classical guitars to communicate the message that it is important to support music for education and children.
www.guitars-m-r-sons.com
PERSONNEL SHIFTS
Chris DeMaria promoted to Marketing Director at Fishman
Chris DeMaria, who has served as Fishman’s (www.fishman.com) MarComm manager since joining the company in 2005, has been promoted to the role of director of marketing, where he’ll handle brand development and all of Fishman’s marketing, advertising, and promotional activities.
|
|
GEAR REVIEW : Zemaitis GZA300 - Heart
|
A robust and sweet-sounding jumbo pays homage to Brit-rock’s glory days.
Tony Zemaitis’s name may not ring with the familiarity of C. F. Martin or Orville Gibson. But for a generation of English rock royalty including David Gilmour, Marc Bolan of T-Rex, Keith Richards, and George Harrison (who once gave a Zemaitis to Bob Dylan for Christmas), Zemaitis’s guitars were one of the spoils of fame and fortune. Like the works of today’s top boutique builders, his instruments were rare, exquisite and uniquely detailed—many consider him among the first in the modern lutherie era. And today his original acoustics and electrics are Holy Grails for many collectors—just ask the individual who shelled out nearly a quarter million for Eric Clapton’s ’60s-vintage 12-string Zemaitis.
More |
|
|
|
ESSENTIAL GEAR |
SansAmp Para Driver DI
Supercharged preamp tone shaper for acoustic and electric guitar, bass, violin, keyboards, drums, vocals, etc. 100% analog circuitry, parametric equalization, variable gain. Also in rackmount: SansAmp RPM.
$275 MSRP
Tech 21 USA, Inc.
(973) 777- 6996
www.tech21nyc.com
|
ACOUSTIC GUITAR BOOKS |
Explore bluegrass guitar with one of today's master musicians
Bluegrass Guitar Essentials
By Scott Nygaard
Bluegrass Guitar Essentials provides a thorough grounding in the essential musical elements of bluegrass guitar. Scott Nygaard’s concise and well-written lessons cover all the traditional aspects of bluegrass guitar, from a primer on bluegrass rhythm guitar, fiddle tunes, the blues, and crosspicking to more contemporary approaches to flatpicking, including unusual chords and solo flatpicking.
In each lesson you’ll find exercises, licks, and 13 full songs to play in both standard notation and tablature, along with chord diagrams and fingerings. Includes CD with complete guitar transcriptions.
$19.95, 72 pp., Book and CD, 9" x 12", HL695931
For single copies, shop acousticguitar.com/books
Dealer inquiries
|
ACOUSTIC GUITAR ALL ACCESS |
 
Get unlimited access to www.acousticguitar.com today! Subscribe to Acoustic Guitar All Access and you’ll receive a password to log in to view our exclusive articles, gear reviews, player profiles, and audio and video enhanced lessons.
Register now
|
|
